| LUKOIL and TNK-BP ask YUKOS for Mazeikui Nafta Russian companies are starting to fight for Yukos' stake in the Lithuanian oil refinery Mazeikui Nafta. Yesterday, the deputy chairman of the board of the disgraced holding, Alexander Temerko (who will most likely be fired from the company in the coming days), told Interfax that LUKOIL and TNK-BP officially contacted YUKOS with a proposal to sell them shares in the Lithuanian enterprise. According to the expert, since there are several contenders for the asset, YUKOS will be able to receive at least $500 million for its share.
“These companies (LUKOIL and TNK-BP. - Ed. ) sent us official letters, and consultations on this issue are now underway,” Mr. Temerko noted. And Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas told Reuters that some “company could buy Mazeikiu and guarantee oil supplies,” but did not name the contenders. In turn, Minister of Economy Viktor Uspaskich noted that when making a deal, Lithuania will insist on at least a five-year guarantee of oil supplies to the plant.
The structure of Mazeikiu Nafta includes the Mazeikiai Refinery with a capacity of 12 million tons of oil per year, an oil pipeline through which raw materials are supplied to the plant, and the Butinge sea terminal. The main shareholders of the concern are YUKOS (53.7%) and the government of Lithuania (40.66%). YUKOS acquired its first 26.85% of Mazeikiu Nafta in June 2002 for $75 million from the American Williams International Company (WIC). In September, the Russian holding increased its share to 53.7%, paying the Americans another $85 million. Yukos also provided the plant with a loan of $150 million.
In just a few years, the Russian company was able to bring an enterprise out of crisis, which had suffered losses from 1999 to 2002. Last year, Mazeikiu Nafta's profit amounted to 600 million litas (174 million euros). However, when tax problems began at YUKOS, supply interruptions began to occur frequently at the plant. According to the export schedule for the second quarter, Yukos will not export its raw materials to Lithuania at all. It will be replaced by LUKOIL, Rosneft, Sidanko (a subsidiary of TNK-BP), Slavneft, Sibneft and TNK-BP.
TNK-BP and LUKOIL yesterday refused to comment on their interest in YUKOS assets. True, in the late 90s, TNK was looking closely at Mazeikui Nafta. And already this year Vagit Alekperov did not exclude the possibility of acquiring a stake in a Lithuanian enterprise. Back in 1998, his company was negotiating with the government of the country to purchase the plant, but then Lithuania preferred American investors, from whom YUKOS later bought the concern. In addition, last year LUKOIL began developing the Kravtsovskoye field (D-6), which is located on the shelf of the Baltic Sea, 22 km from the coast of the Kaliningrad region, so it is easier for it to guarantee supplies of raw materials to Mazeikui Nafta.
According to the unanimous assessment of Finam Investment Company and Gazprombank analysts Maria Radina and Sergei Suverov, YUKOS could easily earn half a billion dollars for its assets, taking into account the profitability of the plant and its controlling stake.
Formally, YUKOS has no obstacles to selling its stake in Mazeikiu Nafta. Although all of the company's assets are under arrest, the shares are owned by the holding's subsidiary, Yukos Finance, registered in Holland, and the arrest does not apply to it. However, it is unlikely that Russian oil workers will decide on such a deal without first receiving the approval of the Russian government. After all, the supply of oil to the Lithuanian refinery (the only one in the Baltic states) is not only an economic, but also a political issue. And the Russian authorities are unlikely to agree to depend on TNK-BP, which has recently increasingly begun to be called a Western company. Denis REBROV |
|
